


Crash

by kho



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 05:18:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8131945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho/pseuds/kho
Summary: Steve gets up to go join Charlie when it happens.  He trips.  He just trips.  There’s a discarded empty glass bottle buried in the sand and when Steve kicks it he jerks and he trips, falls face first into the sand. Simple as that.  That little nothing.  That little, tiny, insignificant nothing.  Except Steve can’t breathe...





	

**Author's Note:**

> A little slice of what I‘d love, love, love to see in an episode of hawaii five o-- Can be read as slashy or not... Set some time after 7x01 though no specific spoilers beyond 6x25.

****It’s a perfectly fine day, is the thing.  Sunday, midafternoon, Charlie building a sandcasle.  Grace is sitting cross legged digging freshly painted toes into the wet sand while she giggles at something Kono said.   Danny fussing about the sun and the sand and the wind and the lotion and the smell and everything with a smile ten miles wide on his face that renders every word out of his moth meaningless.

Chin, Abby, and Sara already look like a family as they wade in the shallows, Sara between the two holding one hand of each.

Lou is smoking a cigar and playing cards with Max at a table behind them as Renee laughs and teaches Max how to read when Lou is bluffing.

Steve gets up to go join Charlie when it happens.  He trips.  He just trips.  There’s a discarded empty glass bottle buried in the sand and when Steve kicks it he jerks and he trips, falls face first into the sand. Simple as that.  That little nothing.  That little, tiny, insignificant nothing.

Except Steve can’t breathe, and his stomach hurts.  He’s bleeding, he’s bleeding all over the place and there’s _bullets, bullets, bullets winging past him.  Danny’s over there with a gun pointed at his head and he’s, he’s, he’s putting the gun down, why is he putting the gun down, no Danny, no, I said shoot him, Danny, shoot him, kill him ya gotta kill him, I’m dying, Danny, I’m dying, save yourself, save yourself, save...._

 _“_ He- _llo_ ,” Danny says as Steve feels him tug on his hand.  “Earth to McGarrett, yo alright there?”

“Im.... I’m,” he says, hyperventilating and cold and thoughts racing and vision tunnelling, “bleeding, Danny, I’m--”

“Babe, no you’re not,” Danny says, easy happy-go-lucky smile sliding into a concerned frown.  “You just took a tumble in the sand there, Steve.  You uh... at most got some sand in your eye.”

“Oh,” Steve says, swallowing and tasting blood.  Feeling his guts clenching, blood spilling out of his stomach, _the plane hurtling towards the sandy beach, face first, face first, crashing, crashing, gonna die, gonna die, gonna,_ “Danny I’m gonna....”  

“Be just fine, Steve,” Danny says, a hand closing over Steve’s shoulder and forcing him to sit down, taking a seat next to him, knee pressing into Steve’s, his hand still on Steve’s shoulder.  “Breathe for me, okay?”

_Stay with me Steve._ _Steve?  I’m right here._ _Do not die._ _Listen to me, you stubborn son of a bitch._

Steve fights off a full body shudder, squeezing his eyes shut and taking a deep breath as Danny’s hand tightens on his shoulder.  “I don’t.  Can’t.”

“Just shut up for a second, just breathe, okay,” Danny says, and his thumb rubs over the curve of Steve’s shoulder.  His voice is calm and soothing in ways Steve thinks maybe he’s only heard it when Danny’s talking someone down off the ledge.  Danny talking to a perp with a gun pointed at him, all raised hands and calm, saying, ‘You don’t wanna do this, sir, you have stuff to live for, you got a wife right? Come on, it’s not too late, we an work something out.  Don’t do this to your daughter.’

 _“_ What’s...” Steve starts, opening his eyes and trying to focus on Danny.  All he can see is Danny’s nose, the whites of his eyes, a little tuft of blonde hair.  Everything else is waves, is black, is dark, is bullets, _buzzes, alarms going off, land in the ocean, consider yourself, no I don’t got a choice, I’m landing on the beach._ “What’s happening, Danny?”

Danny leans closer and Steve focuses on the blue of Danny’s eyes, the arch of his eyebrows, pinched together.  “Okay, babe, I’m not sure but I think you’re having a panic attack.  Your hands are shaking.  Do you feel like it’s difficult to breathe?”

“Mm,” Steve says, nodding, looking down at his hands.  His hands don’t shake.  Not ever.  That’s why he’s such an accomplished sniper, because you breathe in, and you breathe out, and you pull the trigger on the exhale, and you’re fine.  You’re fine.  Your hands are steady.  His hands are steady, his hands are always steady.  “Yeah, and.  And I can’t uh... I don’t have uh... peripheral.”

He can feel Danny shifting closer, his voice lowering before he speaks again.  “Listen to me, Steve.  You’re safe, okay?  It’s just Sunday, okay?  Nothing is happening.  We’re safe, we’re all safe.  We’re at the beach.”

Steve nods his head, closing his eyes, letting his head fall forward.   “Yeah.  Good.  We’re.  We’re good.”

“Sand, feel that,’ Danny says, and then there’s something scratchy under his hand as Danny guides his hand to the ground, digging their fingers into the sand.  “Beach.  Perfectly calm, stupid, annoying as fuck beach.  Sand in my ass, Steven.  Sand between my toes.  Sand, sun, water.  And we are perfectly safe. Happy.  Good.”

“Sand,” Steve says, the white beach stretched out before him, _getting closer and closer and closer, wider and wider, bigger and bigger, until all he sees is sand, and sand, and sand, and the jolt of landing, the grinding of bones, Danny moaning, moaning,_ “you landed in the .... in the sand, you weren’t supposed to.”

Danny is suddenly still.  “What did you just say?”

Steve lifts his head and breathes in through his nose, his pulse finally slowing incrementally.  Vision widening just slightly.  “You landed on the sand, you were supposed to.”  He looks at Danny then, the twisted mouth, the pinched eyebrows, lifts his hand with Danny’s in it and squeezes hard.  “I remember, you were supposed to land in the ocean.  You were... they told you.”

Danny swallows and he squeezes Steve’s hand back.  “Yeah uh.  I wasn’t gonna do that.  You were... how do you remember that you were unconscious.”

“I wasn’t,” Steve says, looking out at the ocean.  “Not the whole time.  I was... I was in and out.”  He clears his throat and extricates his hand from Danny’s, blowing out a breath.  “I think I’m better now.”

“Oh, uh.  Okay,” Danny says, but it’s more of a question, and Steve watches as Danny’s hand floats in the air for a minute before landing back on his arm, patting it.  “Okay, buddy, just.  We’re good, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, blowing out another breath.  “I don’t know where that came from.”

Danny laughs.  “That’s the thing about panic attacks.  They don’t care about your petty human logic. They’re damn well gonna happen when they wanna.”  He pauses and leans into Steve’s side, pressing his arm shoulder into Steve’s.  “That the first time?”

Steve squints his eyes at the horizon.  “No,” he admits slowly.  “I’ve had... a few.”

“Well,” Danny says, leaning harder into Steve for a moment before tilting back over to grab his water bottle and one for Steve too, handing it to him.  “You know you can talk to me anytime, right? If you... If you want to. Need to.”  He locks eyes with Steve and to any passerby it would look like a casual conversation, a nothing conversation, but Danny’s eyes are serious as a heart attack and Steve’s heart trips over itself just looking at him.  “Any time.  I mean it.”

_Hey, listen to me, do not die, okay, I’m not landing this thing for you to die!_

“Thanks, Danny,” Steve says, taking the water bottle and letting it hang loosely between his legs.

“No problem, buddy,” Danny says, winking at him and nodding.

“No,” Steve says, because no, no, that’s not enough, that’s not nearly enough, it’s not good enough, not for him.  Not for Danny.   _He’s_  not good enough for Danny, he hasn’t been for far too long.   _But you, you’re just a big giant ingrate, My son, who I gave bone marrow too, he was more grateful than you are.... Be grateful, don’t be ungrateful._ “No, Danny.  Thanks.”  He meets his eyes.  “For all of it.  For everything.”

Danny looks at him long enough for Steve to feel the tips of his ears turn red and then suddenly Danny’s jaw clenches and his eyes fill with tears and Steve’s right back to trying not to hyperventilate.  “You son of a bitch.”

“Hey, I‘m just saying.”

“I’m sitting here on the beach having a good day,” Danny says, looking away from him and blinking quickly a few times.  “I’m on the beach, the beach Steven, which I hate, possibly more than I hate you, _possibly_ , and I’m having a good day, okay?  My beautiful baby girl is over there, my boy is building a sandcastle that is...”  Danny pauses and leans over to look closer, “That is wow, seriously structurally unstable, he should really, rally consider not giving up his day job.”

Steve laughs and knocks his shoulder against Danny’s.

“I’m saying, you’re welcome,” Danny says finally, squinting up at the sun.  “And I’d do it again, and please, for the love of all that is holy, please, please, don’t make me.”

“Love you too, Danno,” Steve says, and grins at the glare Danny cuts his way.  “Should I count the ways?  D, is for spending hours trapped in a sinking dingy with you while a tiger shark swam nearby.”

Danny rolls his eyes.

“A, is for the Grade A ass you got on you, because have I told you lately what an amazing ass you got?”

Danny looks at him and busts out laughing.

“N, is for the... uh. The.”

“Nine lives he’s gone through working as your partner,” Kono says, walking up to them and squatting down to settle next to him.

“Now that’s some truth right there,” Danny says, pointing at her.

Steve grins and shrugs.  “The other N is for the New Jersey accent that, I swear to God, you have infected me with because sometimes, no joke, I _think_  in your accent, Danno, I think in it!”

Danny grins from ear to ear.  “HA!”

“And Y is...”  Steve falters, frowning.  “Gracie!”

Grace pulls the headphones off of her ears.  “Yeah?”

“What’s the Y in Danny stand for?”

Grace looks at Danny and grins.  “I dunno.  Yutz?”

Danny’s mouth falls open.  “Hey!”

Kono scrunches up her nose.  “Young at heart?”

Danny grins.  “Aw, that’s sweet.”

“Yucky,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow.

Danny pokes him, hard, right on his scar.  “No.”

“Yankee,” Lou pipes in.

“Yappy,” Chin says.

“I will kill you,” Danny yells, making like he’s gonna jump up, laughing when Chin scoops up Sara and hightails it back into the water.

“How about just Y is for you,” Steve says, kicking a foot out to tap Danny on the ankle.  “Cause you’re perfect just the way you are and I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

Danny blushes just the slightest bit and ducks his head.  “I so hate you,” he says, but Steve doesn’t miss the beginnings of a pretty serious grin happening. 

“Liar,” Steve says as Kono settles in with her sunglasses on to tan next to them and everyone goes back to doing what it was they were doing before.

Danny just shrugs and watches the waves crash.

And Steve?  Steve just watches him.

_That’s why I love you babe._

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr here under [@lovethesnark](http://lovethesnark.tumblr.com). 
> 
> Fanfiction Website  
> MOST of my fic is not on AO3, though all of my H5O and beyond is as AO3 didn't exist yet and it was too much to archive. It can be found on my website at [LoveTheSnark.com](http://www.lovethesnark.com).


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